


Lumos

by marycontraire



Series: Nor Pomp Nor Blare [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 1: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Canon Compliant, Gen, Homesickness, Missing Scene, Period-Typical Racism, Period-typical attitudes towards the Irish, Romani & Travelers, becoming friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 14:39:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15584112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marycontraire/pseuds/marycontraire
Summary: It's the beginning of his first year at Hogwarts, and Dean Thomas is homesick.  He's not the only one.





	Lumos

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to [sarapod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/four_right_chords/pseuds/sarapod) for a wonderful and last minute beta. You're the best!

The sad truth of the matter is that Dean Thomas has never before had to work very hard to make friends. He’s not loud or stupid. He’s never been overweight or funny-looking, and his parents never sent him to school unwashed or wearing threadbare hand-me-downs. He uses good manners when talking to adults but has no problem discarding them in conversations with other children. He’s excellent at sport -- or, at least, he’s excellent at football. Most importantly, though, Dean is the sort of boy who notices things -- like, who seems to be the leader of the group and who the outcast? What sort of trainers are cool to wear? Is it okay to talk to girls this year, or are we pretending that they’re diseased aliens of some sort? He notices things, he adjusts his behavior accordingly, and he fits in.

So far, though, this particular survival skill has not served him well at Hogwarts. There is just so _much_ to notice here, so many new and crazy things, that it’s impossible to take it all in. And, as a Muggle-born, he feels as though he’s entered the race several meters behind the starting line with no hope of catching up to the rest of the pack. It seems like everyone else is already familiar with flying broomsticks, talking portraits, and moving staircases. The kids here support Quidditch teams, not football teams. Forget trainers: Hogwarts kids walk around in robes that look like they’ve come out of the _Medieval Times_ picture book Dean’s littlest sister has at home. And while it’s clear Dean is meant to have a built-in group of friends in Gryffindor House, even that hasn’t been easy: Ron Weasley and Harry Potter somehow became best friends on the Hogwarts Express before even being Sorted. 

For the first two months of school, the five Gryffindor boys did most things together, but ever since they were attacked by that troll on Halloween, Ron and Harry have increasingly been abandoning the rest of the group to spend time with Hermione Granger. (Dean had initially thought that, despite being a girl, Hermione might be a natural ally as the only other Muggle-born in their year, but it turned out she’d somehow managed to read up on the entire history of the Wizarding world before even setting foot on the school train.) This has left Dean mainly in the company of Seamus Finnigan, who is loud and forever setting things on fire, and Neville Longbottom, who is very kind but undeniably useless at just about everything -- exactly the sort of boy who would have been an outcast at Dean’s primary school.

In addition to all this, Dean hasn’t been able to see or even listen to a West Ham football match since August. (He brought a pocket radio to school with him, but when it crapped out in the Gryffindor Common Room on the second night of school, Hermione imperiously informed him that “electronics don’t work at Hogwarts because of the magical interference.”) Worst of all, Dean hasn’t been able to speak to his parents and sisters _at all._ He fully expected there to be telephones or some magical equivalent of the same at Hogwarts, but it turns out that witches and wizards just write each other letters and send them by owl. Dean has, of course, done this, and the school has a whole supply of owls in a tower room called The Owlery that he can borrow whenever he likes, but it’s not the same as hearing their voices.

So, yes, Dean Thomas is homesick. His mother warned him that this would happen as she fussed over him on the platform before he boarded the school train, but Dean just rolled his eyes and told her to leave off smoothing his hair. Surrounded as he was by cages of owls, magical fireworks, and older students joyously greeting each other, it was impossible to imagine that homesickness could possibly strike him down. But strike it has, and, worse still, Dean is sure he’s the only one in the dorms who feels this way. Ron has three older brothers at school with him -- all in Gryffindor! -- and with half his family here, how could he possibly miss home? Harry obviously regards Hogwarts as a vast improvement over life in Surrey with his aunt and uncle. Even Neville, doomed to the occasional loneliness of the truly awkward, seems to be enjoying the reprieve from his strict grandmother’s watchful eye. 

That leaves Dean as the lone sufferer of this wretched disease, up at nearly midnight on a Friday reading a newspaper clipping his dad sent him about West Ham’s latest victory that Dean, of course, has missed. And he’s doing so by the light of a candle that’s dripping hot wax onto his hand and bedspread because _of course_ his torch doesn’t bloody work either and they’re not set to learn light charms until next year. Dean finished his weekend homework in the afternoon because Harry and Ron were off somewhere and he was trying to avoid learning a game called “Gobstones” from Neville, and he honestly has no idea how he’ll fill the weekend ahead. Dean has a cousin on his dad’s side who goes to a boarding school -- a regular, Muggle one -- and on weekends they have football practice and are allowed to watch television in the dormitory den during certain hours. Although the Hogwarts grounds have plenty of open space that would make for a great pitch, Dean hasn’t found anyone willing to play football with him, and of course the Gryffindor Common Room has no television.

Dean is so absorbed in his misery (and in the burn that the dripping candle wax left on his thumb) that it takes him several minutes to register the muffled but unmistakable sound of crying coming from the four-poster bed next to him, the one where Seamus Finnigan sleeps. Dean freezes with the hot wax dripping down his fingers, caught in indecision as he listens to Seamus cry for several long minutes. Shouldn’t he just leave Seamus alone? Perhaps he’ll only be embarrassed if Dean tries to help. But Dean has cried in bed once or twice since coming to school, and it felt very lonely with no one there to give him a hug. Dean climbs out of bed with his candle and wand and approaches the closed curtains of the bed. Boldly, he reaches out and draws the dark red hangings aside.

Seamus is curled into a ball under his blankets, face pressed into the pillow, hands fisted in the pillowcase, shoulders shaking visibly. Dean’s never seen anyone older than six cry that hard, and he has sisters.

“Er, Seamus?” Dean says tentatively.

Seamus freezes. “’M not crying,” he says into his pillow, the words barely audible.

“You are, actually,” Dean says.

“’M not.”

Dean wishes he knew what sort of thing he should say to cheer Seamus up, but he honestly doesn’t know Seamus well enough to begin to guess -- he hasn’t been paying him enough attention. “Budge up,” he says. Seamus doesn’t move, but Dean takes a gamble and climbs onto Seamus’s bed. _“Wingardium leviosa!”_ he whispers with a perfect swish and flick of his wand, and the candle floats in the air above the two of them. Dean yanks the curtains closed behind him and lies down atop the coverlet, settling himself in close next to Seamus.

Seamus withdraws his splotchy face from his pillow to say, “You’re going to set us both on fire.”

“That’s rich, coming from you,” Dean says. He regrets it immediately, because they’re hardly comforting words, but Seamus breaks out in a grin that instantly transforms his miserable face.

“Yeah, all right,” he agrees sheepishly.

“Homesick?” Dean asks.

Seamus nods, his hair tangling against his pillow.

“I thought I was the only one,” Dean says.

“You too?” Seamus asks. “I would have had no idea.”

“This place is amazing,” Dean says sincerely. “But… I miss my family and my friends from my old school.”

“I’ve never been to school before,” Seamus says.

 _“What?”_ Dean exclaims, shocked. “How did you learn to read?”

“My mam taught me at home. Lots of witches do that,” Seamus says. “And my older sisters helped, sometimes. And my brother, before he died.”

Dean has no idea how to respond to that admission, so he just says, “I’m sorry.”

“’S okay,” Seamus say. “Or, I mean, it’s not. But there’s nothing you can really say about it. It was a few years ago. Mam’s been different, since. Worries about me more. She didn’t want me to come to England to school at all -- wanted to carry on teaching me at home. We had a proper row about it until my dad threw in for me.”

“Thought your dad was Muggle, though?” Dean says, confused.

“He is, that’s what was so surprising about it!” Seamus says. “Usually he lets my mam handle all the magic stuff. But he got so serious and was all, ‘Just because Tadg is dead doesn’t mean the rest of the children have to stop living.’ And that was that. After that I could come to Hogwarts. I wanted it _so badly,_ but now…”

“My mum said it passes,” Dean tells him. “The homesickness. That’s what she told me.”

“No offense to your mam or anything,” Seamus says. “But that sounds like a load of bollocks to me.”

Dean laughs and Seamus joins in. The candle wavers dangerously above them, and Dean quickly corrects with another swish of his wand.

“You’ve gotten quite good at that,” Seamus observes. 

“Well, I’ve had time to practice, haven’t I?” Dean says. “Since I’ve no one to play footie with and no telly to watch matches on.”

“Mmm,” Seamus agrees. “My town is mostly Muggle and the people there are mad about football, too. My dad tried to teach me to play. I guess I could kick a ball around with you if you brought one.”

“Really?” Dean says, genuinely elated. “Cheers, mate. You’re a good sort. Even if you are Irish.”

Seamus snorts and hits Dean on the chest, but it’s clearly half-hearted. “Know what’s weird?” he says.

“Mmm?”

“I didn’t used to _feel_ Irish when I was home in Ireland. I mean, I didn’t feel anything else, either. But _here…_ I’ve never been to England before. I feel like everyone looks at me different, and it’s like I can’t stop thinking about it. Not that anyone’s called me a pikey or anything, but it’s still… I don’t know.”

 _“Are_ you a pikey?” Dean asks, intrigued. 

Seamus hits him again. _“Traveler,”_ he corrects. “And only sort of. My mam’s one, but obviously she left the clan when she met my dad. Apparently it was a big scandal. Wizard Traveler clans are different, you know. Their painted caravans are bigger on the inside. My grandparents’ one is really cool.”

Dean attempts to digest this information while maintaining the steadiness of the candle, which is now dripping on Seamus’s coverlet. “I think I know what you mean,” he says, “about feeling more Irish in England. My neighborhood at home and my school -- there were loads of Black people there. So I never really thought about being Black. Then I got here, and there are so few! Angelina Johnson checks in on me sometimes, and Lee Jordan is cool to talk to, but there aren’t many others. Weird how that makes you think more about it.” For a moment, Seamus doesn’t speak and Dean wonders if maybe he shouldn’t have said anything, after all: Seamus may be a pikey, but he _is_ still white. 

But then Seamus says, “Never thought about that. That must be weird. There aren’t any Black people in my town at all, actually. It’s quite small. All there is is fishing boats and a few pubs. And a church, obviously.”

“Sounds Irish,” Dean says.

“Very,” Seamus agrees. 

“The Muggle-born thing is tough, too,” Dean says. “Everyone else knows all this stuff that I don’t! And I feel like such an idiot asking _Neville Longbottom_ obvious questions all day long. I’m not an idiot. I swear. I was in advanced set for maths and reading at my last school.”

“I have no idea what advanced set is,” Seamus says, “but next time you don’t know what a Quaffle is or Floo Powder, just ask me.”

“I don’t know what a Quaffle is. Or Floo Powder.”

“Mmm, well, just…. Ask me in the morning, because I’m actually feeling sleepy. Can you put out that candle before your spell breaks and the bed goes up in flames?”

Dean sits up to grab his candle. If he were at home, his mother would tell him to close his eyes and make a wish. He knows a bit about how magic works now, and he knows that wishing on candles doesn’t actually do anything, but he closes his eyes anyway; cupping his hand around the back of the flame he blows it out, thinking as hard as he can, _I wish Seamus Finnigan will be my friend._


End file.
